'Gonzo' to speak at Wexner event

Friday

When The Muppet Show sprang onto television in 1976, its calm center was friendly Kermit the Frog, surrounded by a host of new, colorful, often-eccentric characters.

When The Muppet Show sprang onto television in 1976, its calm center was friendly Kermit the Frog, surrounded by a host of new, colorful, often-eccentric characters.

Easily the oddest of the menagerie was the Great Gonzo, a bug-eyed bird of sorts with a three-dimensional beak and a passion for daredevil stunts -- typically involving cannons or motorcycles, always ending in triumphant disaster.

The performer who lent his arm and voice to Gonzo was Dave Goelz, a key member of Jim Henson's crew of Muppet performers. Goelz also performed Zoot, the dim sax player, and Dr. Bunson Honeydew, among other characters.

In a 30-year career, he has been involved in all the Muppet films as well as The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and the TV series Fraggle Rock.

Goelz, 61, will visit the Wexner Center for the Arts at 1 p.m. Sunday during the center's International Children's Film Festival to introduce a screening of the 1977 TV special Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, in which he performed Wendell Porcupine.

Goelz, of Marin County, Calif., recently chatted with The Dispatch.

Q: How did you join Jim Henson's company?

A: I was an industrial designer, and I went to work for Jim designing and building puppets. I didn't start out as a performer, but Jim knew I was interested in that.

From the beginning, he and Frank (Oz) would give me the occasional private workshop on how it's done. Within about five months of when I joined, we had a TV special called The Muppets Valentine Show (1974). They let me play about three characters in that.

Q: What was that like -- performing for the first time on television?

A: What I remember is prerecording songs for the show. Jim and I were going down in the elevator, and he was saying, "I just love doing the music, singing with a band." And I was quaking in my boots, thinking: "I'm not a singer. I can't do this."

I remember having my own dressing room at the ABC studio. I couldn't believe it.

Q: You're uniquely qualified to clear up a major Muppet mystery: Exactly what species is Gonzo?

A: That's hard to say. Our intent in making the movie Muppets From Space (1999) was to answer that question because people had been asking us for years. The intent was that Gonzo was an alien from outer space.

I've been going around saying that all these years, assuming we had established that. But I had a meeting with Frank Oz about a month ago, and he said: "That's just nonsense. He's not from outer space. That was just a movie." So that made me wonder. I'm still not sure what he is.

Q: Gonzo sang a ballad in The Muppet Movie (1979).

A: Yes, (composer) Paul Williams kind of related to Gonzo. He saw Gonzo as a flightless bird, and he could identify, I guess, because he's small himself. So he wrote the song I'm Going Back There Someday. It was so affecting, and Jim loved it so much that he rewrote the movie to include that song.

Q: Was there pressure when you had to record it?

A: It was early in my career, and I was uncomfortable doing that.

When we went to record it, the band had recorded it in Paul Williams' key. I tried to do it, but I was really in trouble because I just couldn't hit the notes, in addition to not being a very good singer. So they had to rerecord the band track, and I went back another day to record it.

Q: Not to mention having to do it in Gonzo's voice.

A: Well, believe me, you wouldn't want to hear me do it in my voice.

Q: The popularity of The Muppet Show was sudden and spectacular -- especially the effect of Miss Piggy. You all must have been taken by surprise.

A: It did. Piggy developed organically from Frank, who gave her a complex personality.

She started as part of a pig glee club that Kermit was conducting. I had the pig next to her, and just as Kermit began to conduct, she leaned over to me and said, "I know him." And it all grew out of that.

Q: Will you take a Muppet to the Wexner Center?

A: I'm going to bring Gonzo. I hope they get a kick out of that.

fgabrenya@dispatch.com

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